Attitudes Changing Toward A 3rd Political Party

Chances For 3rd Party: Better, But No Cinch

WASHINGTON — Imagine people suddenly growing tired of Coke and Pepsi. Or demanding an alternative to the American and National baseball leagues.

It's usually hard for a new choice to shoehorn its way into the American consumer's psyche; they like to pick from the familiar names.

"Attitudes, once formed, are very difficult to change," said Michael D. Johnson, associate professor of marketing at the University of Michigan.

But attitudes toward third parties may be changing. The 1992 election results strongly suggest that the ground is more fertile now than any time since before the Civil War for a third party to emerge as an important political force.

There are already two third-party governors, Connecticut's Lowell P. Weicker Jr. and Alaska's Walter J. Hickel. Congress has an independent House member, Vermont's Bernard Sanders. And independent Ross Perot's showing in Tuesday's presidential election was the best third-party showing in 80 years.

Perhaps most ominous for aficionados of either/or politics was how Democrats and Republicans fared this year.

Only 23.3 percent of all eligible voters -- only 55 percent of whom voted -- picked President-elect Clinton, giving him the smallest mandate of any new president since John Quincy Adams in 1824. Republicans got only 20.1 percent, the GOP's worst showing since 1912.

"This election clearly showed the weakness of the two political parties," said Curtis B. Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, the Washington group that developed the figures.

But weakness is one thing. History is another, and trying to start third political parties has been about as successful as efforts to form third baseball leagues.

"The problem with third parties is that people tend to splinter

off them," said Frank I. Luntz, president of the Arlington, Va.based polling firm used by Perot early in his campaign.

There are usually two reasons. The newly elected candidate reaches out to the third party's supporters and makes them feel comfortable enough so they are reabsorbed into the two-party system. Also, the American political process is stacked against a successful third party.

But 1992 may change that thinking, because suddenly the four big obstacles to success -- the need for large sums of money, voter fealty to the two parties, lack of a coherent platform and the fact that third parties are often one-person movements -- do not appear to be the hindrances they once were.

In this age of better-educated, better-informed people, "voters really pride themselves on being independent," said David Martucci, acting executive director of the Maine Democratic party.

Trying to get enough money to run a party is like trying to build a chain of stores from scratch to compete against Kmart and Wal-Mart.

"Fund-raising will always be a problem, and we've got a long way to go," said Alexander DiPasquale, executive director of the Independence Party, a third party that will hold a planning session in Weicker's office today.

What helps is someone such as Perot, a billionaire who poured an estimated $60 million of his own money into the campaign.

But raising money to back any new venture -- whether in politics or business -- is tough, especially if it lacks a philosophy or other selling point that is significantly different from those of the existing parties.

Even if the money can be raised, using it to build an expensive, well-organized campaign, one that resembles the others, creates more problems. It can alienate people attracted to the new movement by its promise that it would do things differently.

"A lot of us quit when the Perot movement turned into a campaign," said Patty Sheehan, the movement's first Vermont coordinator. "We want [the Perot movement] to be the opposite of how parties run. Instead of being run from the top down, it should be the party of the people." Third parties usually do well at first because they walk and talk with personality. But once that personality loses interest, the party becomes politics' equivalent of the hula hoop.

On a state and local level, most recently successful third-party efforts have involved well-known figures with political bases full of supporters who had voted for them before and contributed to their campaigns. As candidates, they already knew something about getting elected and governing. Weicker had been a senator for 18 years before becoming governor; Hickel was Alaska's governor in the 1960s and secretary of the interior under President Nixon. Vermont's Sanders was Burlington's mayor for eight years.

Perot was a well-known businessman before he ran for president, and became popular not only because of the issues he stressed, but because of his folksy demeanor.

"He was speaking the kind of words a significant percentage of the population wanted to hear, and spoke in language they had not heard since Ronald Reagan," Luntz said.

But as the personality loses its freshness, or moves on to other things, his party usually fades.